South Korean students, workers demand repressive gou't resign

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1991 The Revolutionary Communist Youth (JCR), the Fourth Internationalist Youth organization in France, has found the rebellion of young people in South Korea a particularly inspiring example of the potential of new generations for fighting Bush's "new world order." The following article in the June issue of its paper, L'Égalité, summarized the events in the struggle against the South Korean regime and the most recent developments.

In the first part of June, confrontations were continuing in South Korea. In Seoul [the capital] and Pusan, workers and students faced up to the riot police, suffering hundreds of casualties. On June 3, the death of a high-school student was announced. He had burned himself alive a couple of weeks before.

[A week earlier], the Korean premier, Ro Jai-Bong, submitted his resignation on May 22 after a month of demonstrations against the government. This revival of the protest movement, representing a real political crisis, came after a student died on April 26 as the result of a police beating.

Even though the resignation of Ro JaiBong had only a limited importance (the post of premier is essentially ceremonial in South Korea), it marked a weakening of the police state of "President" Roh Taewoo, especially since the latter had declared that there was no question of making any concession on this point under the pressure of street demonstrations.

On May 1, the wave of protests initiated by the students and youth crossed a threshold with the entry on the scene of thousands of workers. Despite the ban on celebrating the international day of workers' action [May Day], a cortege of 15,000 persons marched through the streets after a rally at the University of Seoul.

In Kwangchu, 10,000 workers and students demonstrated. For the first time in three days, a student tried to immolate himself.

After a week, five students had killed themselves in this way, demanding the resignation of Roh Tae-woo.

Michel Rocard [French premier at the time] was visiting the region and was supposed to go to the University of Seoul on May 2. He decided that it was more prudent to call it off.

Actions continue despite threats On May 9, 400,000 demonstrators marched all across the country demanding the resignation of the government. In Seoul, more than 120,000 students and workers repulsed the riot police and took control of the streets for a period of time.

According to state TV, 50,000 students demonstrated in Pusan, and a 30,000strong contingent was attacked by the police in Kwangchu. Protests were noted also in Taegu, Masan, Tajon, and other cities.

On May 13, the students wrecked the headquarters of the Conservative Party. While the regime and its party, the Democratic Liberal Party, seemed to be beginning to divide over what orientation to follow, the government finally announced its determination to oppose the demonstration. Minister of information Choi Chang-yoon declared "now it is necessary to restore public order."

The threats did not discourage the students and workers determined to honor the youth Kang Jaung-dae, who was beaten to death by special police units. On the day in question, after the funeral, they clashed violently with forces under the Ministry of the Interior and the army sent to disperse them.

The participants called new actions spaced out up till May 18, the anniversary of the massacre of Kwangchu in 1980, when several hundred persons were killed by the dictatorship's paratroop regiments.

On May 18, 250,000 people went into the streets across the entire country to commemorate the Kwangchu mass insurrection, which was crushed by the South Korean army with the aid of the US occupation troops.

Role of U.S.

In 1980, a hundred people demonstrating for democratic freedoms were killed in Kwangchu. The regime extended martial law throughout the country.

The entire city of Kwangchu then rose up against the government, with armed groups of the population rapidly taking control of the streets. Mass meetings organized by students' and citizens' committees called for the end of the dictatorship.

The army staged a terrible counterattack, using tanks, helicopters and heavy machineguns. Government representatives acknowiedged that 200 people were killed. But independent observers estimated the deaths at nearly 2,000.

Many Koreans held Washington responsible for the Kwangchu massacre. And more and more are coming to think that it is U.S. imperialism, in league with its agents in Seoul, who are benefiting from the division of the country and maintaining it.

The country is cut in two by a wall that cost $3.5 billion to build. The regime in the South forbids all contacts with the North, which are considered to violate the national security law, and punishes them accordingly. There are 1300 political prisoners in South Korean jails.

Back in 1989, the JCR supported an appeal launched by the Young Communists and the Christian Worker Youth 42,000 U.S. troops poised and ready (JOC) for two of them-the student Rim Su-kyeung and the Catholic priest Moon the "Crime" of crossing the demarcation line.

The partition of Korea in 1945 was a result of the Second World War and the Yalta accords, which confirmed the occupation of the North by the Soviet Union and of the South by the United States.

After the failure of the imperialists to conquer the entire country in the 19501953 Korean War, South Korea has always been a U.S. frontline against the Soviet Union and China.

Following the war, in which 3 million people were killed, the country was definitively divided at the 38th parallel. On one side was the "people's" state of North Korea. On the other was the capitalist police state of South Korea, with more than 46,000 U.S. soldiers—with hundreds of nuclear weapons—stationed at 42 bases.

Every year since 1976, joint U.S.South Korean maneuvers have been held. The last exercises, entitled "Team Spirit '91," involved a simulated North Korean invasion. Since the inauguration of the Bush administration, threats and provocations have been multiplying.

With the procapitalist decomposition of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, Soviet aid to North Korea has been greatly reduced. Like Cuba, it is being directly threatened today by the USA. But this project is being made more difficult by the widening of the protest movement in the South, some tendencies in which are for a socialist reunification of Korea.

Korean democratic movement The Korean democratic movement has long been led by the "Three Kims"-Kim Young-sam, Kim-Jong-il and Kim Daejung. The first two today have more or less gone over to the regime. Kim Daejung, long an idol of the French Communist Party, defends the interests of below. They oppose Gorbachev, whom they accuse of treason for making an official visit to Seoul.

But they harbor, it seems, a lot of illusions about North Korea and the Stalinist-dynastic regime of Kim Il-sung. This is still more of a problem now because Kim Il-sung has just made a spectacular diplomatic turnaround, accepting the possibility of sharing a seat in the UN with the South. The division of the country would thus be legitimized de facto.

The opposition's determination-and also its political confusion-have been revealed by the increase in self-immolations, whose number has risen to nine.

Decisive weight of workers There is a lot of hope, however, that the workers will become more involved. They have a long tradition of struggle against the government unions and the monopolies.

Four years ago, a student mobilization managed to spread to the workers, bringing down Chun Doo-wan, the regime's former strongman. Like today, the events started at that time with the murder of a youth by the police.

Chun Doo-wan was replaced by his crown prince, Roh Tae-woo. The United States supported this move. It had begun to find Chun-Doo-wan a burden, and wanted to give the regime a more presentable image. But the American-Korean-style "democratization" was limited, and the workers mobilized again in the spring of 1989.

The conflict got rolling with a strike of subway workers, and spread to the shipyards. At Hyundai, the workers stood up to 10,000 riot police. In 1990, an independent union confederation (the Chonnohyop, National Council of Workers Unions) was created in opposition to the official "unions."

The promises of liberalizing the regime (freeing political prisoners, more numerous authorizatións for demonstrations) ensued in order to defuse the mass movement.

Despite the diversion attempted by the liberal opposition-which is trying above all to get representation in a government of "national salvation"— the workers and youth remain focused on the demand for the resignation of Roh Tae-woo. Their combativity is shaking one of the historic pillars of U.S. domination in Asia.

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